Crude oil futures closed lower Friday on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange.

The most active crude oil contract for July delivery was down 26 yuan (about 3.77 US dollars) to close at 472.5 yuan a barrel.

On Friday the total trading volume for 13 listed crude oil futures contracts on the exchange was 424,224 lots, with a turnover of about 200.4 billion yuan.

China launched the crude oil futures trading, which is open to overseas investment, on March 26 last year.